Alex Spillius is The Daily Telegraph's Washington Correspondent.

Michelle Obama's audience 'too black'

A Pittsburgh student paper reports that an organiser at a Michelle Obama event was worried about having too many black people sitting in the prime, on-camera spots behind the candidate's wife as she spoke.

While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama's event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama.

The Tartan's correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, 'Get me more white people, we need more white people.' To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, 'We're moving you, sorry. It's going to look so pretty, though.'

'I didn't know they would say, 'We need a white person here," said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. 'I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn't know it would be so outright.'

All campaigns do this sort of stage management, but Obama's person was caught out. John McCain's advance team will usher some Vietnam vets on stage; Hillary Clinton's people will make sure there are not too many grey beards and wrinklies behind her, as she tries to broaden her youth appeal. Now Obama, who has won the black vote 9 to 1 in recent primaries, is worried about appearing too black to the white working class voters of Pennsylvania. Somehow it goes against the whole new politics thing.